She Thinks Of
by DebbieB
Summary: A lot of things go through your mind in those last few moments before the day begins.


She thinks of places she's been. Of restaurants that captured her fancy, particularly nice concert venues where she enjoyed favorite symphonies, or rowdy bars where she would go every once in a blue moon, if a friend were in town and wanted to relive the glory days of youth. She thinks of clothes she's worn, and shoes she shouldn't have worn but wore anyway. She thinks of choices she's made and mistakes she's regretted and lovers she wishes she'd taken.

But mostly, she thinks of the people she's known.

She thinks of Winslow, who never could get that combination straight on her building's security lock. Of the time she spent laughing with him, absolutely sure that the gods meant for her to spend several minutes in the pouring rain with this charming old fellow, a war hero, watching him struggle with the security codes to let her in after a meltdown of a day. She thinks of the times when he frustrated her by losing packages delivered while she was at the office, or when he charmed her with stories of his boyhood on Picon. She thinks of the pictures he had of his daughters—six of them!—plastered in his tiny alcove in the lobby of her building where his security station was.

She thinks of Miletta, with the daffodil smiles and the absolute disregard for authority only a twelve-year-old child could have. She thinks of the times she didn't bring her homework in, and how she tested the first year teacher to the limits of her patience with question after question after question. How she wore dance slippers to school for three weeks straight after seeing a performance of "Persephone's Journey" at the Center for Cultural Arts with the school. She wonders if the girl's eyes are still quite so blue, if her smile still brightens the room like a bunch of wild daffodils.

She thinks of Marcus and Johannes and Brenda and Arturus, who at various times and in various ways provided release from the dreadful boredom, the unbearable loneliness, or the sheer intensity of political life. Of their varied forms of seduction, each beautiful and clever and sexy in his or her own particular way. Marcus, who liked to run ice down the back of her legs, then warm the flesh with his tongue. Johannes, who never really got over the scent of her hair, and would spend an eternity breathing her in after they'd made love. Brenda, who challenged her and teased and delighted, breaking her of hidden prejudices and opening her mind and body to a level of pleasure she'd never dreamed possible. And Arturus, her artist boy, her dreamer-philosopher with the dirty mind and brilliant soul. How he would sketch her when she was working, completely without her consent, and how he made her feel so beautiful when she saw his drawings of her, eyes focused downward, hair shining in the morning light.

She thinks of Adar and his unshakeable faith in her. Of his determination to see her push beyond her limits, to see her break through to something beyond just doing what was right. She thinks of those long evenings at his home, with his wife and kids, her surrogate family, of heated political debates and hot homemade stew with thick crusty bread. She thinks of that couch, the really shabby one Adar wouldn't get rid of though his wife begged him for years, how it wrapped her into its warmth on nights when they just wouldn't let her go home so late, no matter how she protested, and how it felt like she was a child playing sleepover, waking to the smell of Adar cooking breakfast and Louise hurrying the kids out to play so they won't wake her with the noise.

She thinks of her mother, before the cancer, before the pain that ate her out from the inside. She thinks of the time when they went out on the spur of the moment to the oceanside and ate awful pre-packaged sandwiches and threw stones in the surf. How they talked about sex and dreams and love and family, and shared that afternoon of womanhood, not mother-daughterhood, together, watching the sun set on the water and wishing, both in her own mind, that the sun would never set.

She thinks of her own child, the one she didn't have, the one she couldn't have because it was too inconvenient, it was too controversial, it was too hard. She thinks of herself in the doctor's office, of her shaking hands and the guilt, so much terrible guilt, of the excuses and justifications and the final understanding that it had to be like this. Of her prayers to gods she barely believed in, to Hera, to Demeter, to Artemis, for forgiveness. Of her anger, because she knew even as she went in for the…procedure…that she had cancer, and that her mother had died of cancer, and that she damned well couldn't bring a child in this world to become an orphan. She thinks of the tears that she never shed, because to shed them would have been an admission of some deeper guilt she couldn't understand or accept. Tears that lumped into her heart, right off to the side, under her left breast, where they grew and grew until they eventually decided to kill her.

She thinks of all the people she lost. All the places she would never see again. All loves she would never know.

Then she opens her eyes, with a prayer to the gods that she now believes in with every fiber of her being, and begins another day.


End file.
